Rupert Murdoch's hacking spill-over

This feels a little like the cartoon that depicts a long ago diarist writing in 1337 “today the hundred years war began”. However everything has a starting point and speculation has begun and it seems that Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World's hacking scandal is spilling into the US.

There are several items that indicate at least some spill-over underway.
With a $7 billion drop in market value of News Corp shares over four trading days a business observer wonders:

Will the falling domino effect ripple to the U.S., throttling through News Corp.'s powerhouse properties, Fox TV network, and the respected Wall Street Journal?

Also an ongoing institutional shareholders lawsuit against News Corporation was amended to include the recent phone hacking scandal. The new charge claims that News Corp’s board failed to exercise proper oversight and take sufficient action since news of hacking first surfaced at its subsidiary, News International, nearly six years ago.
In addition, yet a little less tangible is that the ethically challenged operating methods now on display in the UK have been imported to Murdoch’s operations here in the US.

"The lack of ethics shown by Murdoch's powerful staffers in England is a transnational virus," said Jeff Cohen, journalism professor on csmonitor.com, "News Corp. has regularly imported these British staffers to his US outlets, from the New York Post to Fox News to the Wall Street Journal."

In addition one media expert says the lawsuit is just the beginning, while noting that: the intangible damage to American journalism should not be overlooked.

"Look no farther than the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal," he says. “On the Monday morning of this enormous scandal,” he notes, the paper had only a small notice about the closing of the News of the World.

And finally US Senator Jay Rockefeller Chairman of the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee has taken notice and called for investigations saying in a statement:"This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated," he added. "I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe."

Here are just some of News Corporation US holdings.It is a partial list:
FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, Fox Television Stations, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures
New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network
SmartMoney.com (with Hearst), HarperCollins Publishers, William Morrow Publishers
hulu.com (32%)